Stars and Stripes

I was born on June 15, the day after flag day, two weeks following Memorial Day and a little more than two weeks before Independence Day.


Perhaps because my birthday was surrounded by patriotic holidays I have always had a strong emotional tie to our United States flag and its meaning for us Americans.

One year, for my 10th birthday, I asked my parents to buy me an American flag of my own. I don't know where she found it, but my mother acquired what had to be the only plastic 3-foot by 5-foot U.S. flag ever manufactured. Since it was plastic coated it didn't fly or fold very easily, but I was elated to have a flag of my own to display.

With the flag came a set of instructions and several booklets. One was a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Another was the U. S. Constitution. And there was a parchment copy of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

The flag didn't come with a pole, and I didn't want to simply afix it to the side of the house or garage, so I set out to make my own flag pole. Among my father's piles of wood and steel stacked behind a corn crib I found a 1-1/2 inch diameter aluminum pipe. Without asking I hacksawed it to what I felt was an appropriate length and drilled a hole through one end in order to attach a small pulley that I had found in the garage. The rope to raise and lower the flag was made from some extra clothesline my Mother wasn't using. I then located some of Dad's baling wire and cinched the pole with its pulley and rope to a corner post next to the road in front of our house.

There it was. A flag pole worthy to bear the emblem of the United States of America.

Not until I got the flag out into the daylight did I realize that what were supposed to be bold red stripes appeared more pinkish in the bright sunshine. And the background of the 50 white stars appeared to be more baby blue than the deep midnight that I expected.

But I wasn't disappointed.

The flag had come with detailed instructions on when and how it should be displayed, the appropriate protocols for raising and lowering, and the special method of folding the flag into a precise triangle so that, when finished, only white stars on blue background can be seen.

For several weeks that summer I would arise early in the morning and run outside to raise my flag. And in the cool of each evening it would be reverently lowered and folded for the night.

Like any youngster my enthusiasm eventually waned, and I was less diligent about flying my flag. When school started that fall I quit raising the flag altogether except on holidays or special occasions such as family gatherings.

Plasticized nylon doesn't last long in wind and sun, and my flag deteriorated after a couple of years. The instructions I had received with it even explained how to properly dispose of the flag when it was worn, and one Saturday I burned it in a personal ceremony out in our grove of maples.

Today a special flag is on display in our family room, folded so only white stars on blue background can be seen. It was a gift from me to my father on his 88th birthday - a flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

I thank my parents for giving me my first flag - not because of its beauty, but because of the pride and hope that I still feel when I remember what it stands for.